TRIPS Agreement: Vaccines

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, of course. The best answer to future vaccine development is achieved by preserving the intellectual property system. It is a good, consensus-based agreement that all member states can go along with, and a good agreement for vaccine manufacturers and developing countries.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, under the existing intellectual property system, as of June this year 72.9% of people in high-income countries have been vaccinated with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine whereas only 17.94% in low-income countries have been vaccinated. The UN special rapporteur on discrimination and the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights have attributed this directly to the existing TRIPS intellectual property system. What is the moral justification for that?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord is wrong: the problem is not with vaccine production, as there is now an excess number of vaccines being produced; the problem is with the healthcare systems of individual countries that are unable to store, distribute and inject those vaccines, which is why we are working with developing countries to help them with that. We know that this is the case because of the problems we had rolling out the vaccine in this country, which of course has a very advanced healthcare system. I repeat the point: the problem is not with vaccine production, as there are already excess vaccines being produced; the problem is with the healthcare systems in those countries which enable them to be distributed and put into peoples’ arms.

Maldives: Tariffs

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, that is another good point made by my noble friend. The issue of a free trade agreement covering the whole of the Commonwealth is the rich diversity of nations in the Commonwealth. Some are large and some are small; some have a certain economic capacity and others have another economic capacity. A free trade agreement with the Commonwealth would of course have to be negotiated over that whole range of countries. It is a wonderful, idyllic idea but in practice it would be hard to achieve.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, we all understand why the Minister’s department cannot do everything at once, but why is Africa so often at the bottom of the list?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I think that is a rather unfair point. I do not have the figures at my fingertips but I well remember a debate that we had just a couple of months ago on the agreements that we have reached with certain African countries. We are making progress. Of course we would all like to make more progress, but at a time of limited capacity you have to prioritise.

Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Boateng]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the benefits of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, and (2) the joint call by the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the case for minority ethnic pay gap reporting is not only a profoundly moral one, it is intensely practical. Every person, regardless of their ethnicity or background, should be able to fulfil their potential at work. That is the business case as well as the moral case:

“Diverse organisations that attract and develop individuals from the widest pool of talent consistently perform better.”


Those are not my words. I am adopting them, but they are the words of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and they ring true.

The Government’s own review Race in the Workplace, conducted by the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, estimated that having full representation of ethnic minority workers in the labour market would help reduce poverty across the country significantly and benefit the UK economy to the tune of about £24 billion a year—that is about 1.3% of GDP. The reality is that poverty is a fact of life for all too many in the black and ethnic minority communities. BAME groups experience a poverty rate that is twice as high as that of their white counterparts. Research indicates that poverty rates are about 50% for Bangladeshi groups, 47% for Pakistani groups, 40% for black groups, 35% for Chinese groups and 25% for Indian groups, compared with 20% for white groups in the UK.

The poverty is real. The challenge to British industry to improve its productivity, and to grow our economy in a post-Covid world, is also all too apparent; hence the need for the Government to act now on this issue, given that they consulted on the ethnic minority pay gap as long ago as October 2018. They closed that consultation in 2019, yet no response has ever been published. That is really inexplicable, given the degree of public concern about this issue.

Dianne Greyson is to be congratulated on her campaign, which produced over 130,000 signatures. That was what led to the debate on the issue in the other place. The Office for National Statistics has demonstrated only too clearly the need for the better collection of data. In addition, we now have the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and the Equality and Human Rights Commission all making the case for better data and for mandatory reporting in this area. The reason they do so is that if we do not successfully address the challenges of diversity in the workplace and the damage done to our economy by not securing the proper, fair and equitable promotion and retention of black and ethnic minority workers, with decent and fair rewards, the price to pay is all too high.

The challenge for the Government is to come up with a response to the questions raised. It really is not good enough to put this in the “all too difficult” box. Yes, we know there are challenges and trade-offs to be made in obtaining data that takes this issue forward; however, as the advances that resulted from the collection of data on gender have demonstrated, we know that, where we do have data, the transparency and the light of publicity thrown on glaring disadvantage and disparity change the situation on the ground—which gives hope to those currently prevented from realising their full potential.

Importantly, it also recognises that, out there in the wider world, it is already beginning to happen. There are some really good examples of best practice among employers, working with their trade unions and statisticians qualified to assist them in obtaining data that is really making a difference and linking that data to both a narrative that demonstrates what the company is doing to improve the situation and an effective strategy and policy to get them to a better place. Good examples are there. Network Rail and John Lewis are very good examples, and there are other employers showing the way.

But all employers are asking for better guidance. They are all saying, “Look, we want to produce data, but we need to be sure that we are all producing data on the same basis and we want to know that the Government are on our side and supporting what we are doing.” The silence from the Government is deafening, and also quite inexplicable when you look at what their own reviews demonstrate. It is inexplicable too in terms of an agenda that is about levelling up and improving everyone’s opportunities, as this is a UK-wide problem. The ethnicity pay gap in Humberside is something like 12.7%; in London it is far worse, at 23.8%. It is 10.3% in Scotland, where the good news is that its Government are now actively promoting and supporting the collection of this data.

So the question for the Government is to respond to the legitimate points made by the Trades Union Congress, the CBI and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. When asking for mandatory reporting and for the Government to seek to build on the success of gender reporting, they made the point:

“Reporting, done well, can provide a real foundation to better understand and address the factors contributing to pay disparities.”


The Government have been asked—and still there is no response—to support further work on this by the CBI, the trade unions and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Professional statisticians have come forward with advice and expertise on this. The ONS wants to see progress in making sure that its own data better contributes to the resolution of these issues.

So will the Government now set a clear timeframe to implement this? Will they work with interested parties to develop the tools and resources required by industry to ensure that employers are supported and workers are confident in disclosing data in advance of making reporting mandatory? This can be incremental; it does not have to be done overnight. It does not have to involve all employers employing more than 250 people at once; it can be done incrementally.

The Government have the answer to these issues in their own review. They have the capacity to respond to the challenge laid down by all people of good will on all sides of both Houses for this action to be taken. The time for talking is over; now is the time to act. That was the title of the Government’s own review—Time to Act.

Republic of Cameroon: Economic Partnership Agreement

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the register of interests. I support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Grantchester and welcome the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, on Ghana.

Cameroon is in the grip of a major humanitarian conflict, fuelled by events in the north with Boko Haram and in the anglophone region with the movement there for secession. There are major food shortages and more than 1 million externally and internally displaced people. Ghana, by contrast, is a fully functioning, secure, successful, multi-party democracy. Both, however, have huge potential in terms of agriculture, minerals and manufacturing export. Trade is the key to their future prosperity, and it is on regional trade that I will seek to address the House today.

The Africa free trade agreement offers the best hope for growth in GDP and the alleviation of poverty. Will the Government commit to work, as a matter of urgency and with a specific timetable, to enter into negotiations with the ECOWAS region so as to maximise economic transformation and development through successful regional integration?

The agreement signed with Ghana commits the British Government to do that. It will be vital for there to be capacity, not just within ECOWAS and Ghana in order to negotiate such an agreement. The FCDO has a role to play in that in terms of building capacity, but it is also important that there is a joined-up effort among departments within our own Government in order to ensure that we are able to come to an agreement with the whole of ECOWAS as a matter of urgency. Engagement is crucial.

The Government also, and importantly, need to replicate within west Africa their success in TradeMark East Africa, which supports the development of the market value chain and the development of manufacture and agribusiness in east Africa. We need to see the same in west Africa.

We need to publish a medium-term strategy for our trade support to both Ghana and the Cameroon—and the whole of the ECOWAS region—in order to deliver that as a matter of urgency. Aid will take Africa and this region only so far; trade is much more important in the short, medium and long term. These agreements ought to be working in ways that promote successful integration. I hope that the Government will commit to the resources to make that happen.

Economic Partnership Agreement: Kenya

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in the maiden debate of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald. I had the honour of serving with him as a Minister and then as a colleague. He may be young compared to many of us, but he was never naive—at least not in my experience.

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate and commend the work of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and his committee in giving this agreement much-needed scrutiny. I particularly support the call, and concerns expressed within it, for the implications of this agreement for economic regional integration. Successive Governments of all political hues have long supported regional economic integration in Africa as one of the best means of lifting people out of poverty. It would be a tragedy if these agreements—this is the first of a number—were to undermine the real progress that has been made in the development and economic integration of the regions of Africa, not least as this is the first year of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. This free trade agreement creates the largest global free trade area in the world by country number, aims to be a model of cross-border co-operation—something that DfID, as it was, and the current department have long championed—and, importantly, offers a real prospect for a continent currently facing a pandemic that has caused it up to $79 billion in output losses in 2020 alone. Africa has never needed economic integration more than now. The World Bank estimates that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement will boost regional income by 7%, or $450 billion, speed up wage growth for women and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035.

If regional integration does not come to pass on the continent, we face the real prospect of holding it back and increasing still further the number of people who will fall into poverty as a result of Covid. I therefore urge the Minister to respond positively to the request in the report that the Government should provide an assessment of the risks posed by the agreement to the East African Community Customs Union, as well as an assessment of the implications of any bilateral agreement for regional integration in East Africa. This is important today, since Ghana has signed—in the Locarno room—a post-Brexit trade agreement with the UK. I commend the hard work of Ministers on both sides for all they have done in that regard. If that hard work is to be turned into benefits for farmers, young entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses, it requires that this report and its implications are taken seriously by the Government so that, when we come to consider Ghana’s free trade agreement with the UK, it will enhance rather than damage regional integration.

Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My noble friend recognises, as I do, the importance of reaching an agreement with Canada. Of course, the agreements that we will reach with Canada, those we hope to reach with Australia and New Zealand and the agreement we have reached with Japan are all vital precursors to fulfilling our ambition to accede to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is a complex matter; there are 11 countries in that partnership, and it will take time to bring all this to the point where the meal can be served, as opposed to just being cooked. Once we get to that point, Parliament will be fully involved.

[Lord Boateng (Lab) [V]]

Can the Minister assure the House that our continuity trade agreements with our African partners will support rather than undermine regional integration and the African free trade area?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. The free trade agreements are vitally important for the African countries; we are well seized of that. We have an active dialogue with them, and look forward to strengthening those agreements as we go forward.